Job Detail

The Oral Care Category is a dynamic, fast growing part of our Personal care business. With brands, such as Signal, Close-Up, Zendium and Regenerate, Oral Care is the fastest growing PC category.

The Category is embarking on a big portfolio transformation project with the ambition of having bigger, better flavours whilst in parallel making significant simplifications and savings.

Flavours being an intrinsic part of the products, and one of the key preference drivers; any changes made must be consumer validated to make sure that the change would have positive impact on our brand. We need to ensure we are driving brand loyalty with current consumers and creating opportunities to excite and attract new consumers to our brands. Thus, it will require an in-depth consumer research program to be run in parallel, to ensure any changes we make to our flavour portfolio are in line with our strategic ambitions.

The CFM (Category Flavour Manager) will need to understand both product development principles, project leadership as well as consumer research understanding to be able to lead and coordinate these workstreams.

The successful candidatewill be accountable to the GCLT (Global Category Leadership Team) for leading the flavour agenda strategically and creatively with the support of a cross functional team, including the Flavour Houses (FH). Therefore, we are looking for a strong leader with creative passion for world class flavours, to identify and build a competitive flavour portfolio and to be at the forefront of the emerging trends in the flavour industry. In addition to product development understanding, the candidate must have either a working knowledge of the development and technology of flavours (or fragrances) or demonstrate a strong desire to undergo required training. Excellent communication skills, building strong teams and networks internally and external and delivery through people are all key requirements of this role.

The role of CFM is a challenging and exciting opportunity for a high caliber individual to join our team. It is a fantastic opportunity for someone to make a big personal impact on our category and really shape the future of flavours for Oral care.

KEY RESPONSIBILTIES

The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and executing the new category flavour strategy, encompassing both technical and consumer insights and delivering key category flavour savings initiatives. They will interface with the FH and work in close collaboration with Marketing and R&D teams (for all brands) to define and select the hedonic direction for the flavour (theme). They will also need to create compelling claims and flavour stories that will be incorporated into to the marketing communication plans. They will also be expected to appreciate Unilever processes of innovation and brand development and specifically understand the overarching role of flavour.

Our portfolio transformation agenda will create the biggest value and impact in our big markets in South Asia, South East Asia, Africa, North Africa and South America, hence experience of working in or with these markets is critical, to understand the complexities of the markets, and the diversity of our consumers.

To effectively communicate with current and future consumers, the CFM must proactively coordinate work in partnership with FH to map consumer habits, product and flavour preferences to deliver winning products through better flavours. Therefore, working with external providers such as FH will be essential for successful delivery of the programme.

The ideal candidate will have:

Knowledge of flavour (or fragrance) and development processes and a passion for the magic of flavours

Excellent communication skills and previous experience of leading a program across multiple teams and locations with a demonstrable ability to represent our category in both internal and external leadership forums.

A working knowledge of qualitative, quantitative & sensory consumer research techniques.

Experience of translating consumer understanding into tangible business actions

Experience of Personal Care product development

An appreciation of applicable processes within Unilever and external regulations which apply to flavour and new product development (Supply Chain, safety, etc.).

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES

The CFM will be working remotely with the Global Design Centre/Brand teams and with multiple FH and seamlessly interacting with diverse/multicultural teams from Marketing/R&D and FH based in different geographies and time zones. Hence, effective communication skills (primarily English) and network management is a key. The successful candidate will have to manage Senior Stakeholders and should be able to meet expectations on time, communication, project management, and project delivery.

As this is key strategic area for the category we are creating a new team in line with the flavours transformation agenda. The CFM will be responsible for setting up a new team, upskilling the team with required skill set, setting up sensory facilities to evaluate flavours, training the flavour team as well as training wider teams to bring entire category up to the basic appreciation level in flavours.

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE & SKILLS

Degree level educated in relevant discipline

Experience in a formulation design and development environment and/or consumer research

Excellent track record of delivering challenging targets and very good communication skills (written and spoken English) to be able to seamlessly interface with cross-functional teams.

Specific technical training in fragrance and/or flavour development would be preferred

Additional written and spoken language skills (over and above English), especially languages spoken in our current and new opportunity markets would be advantageous

SUPERVISION

The CFM role will be based in the UK and will report to Oral Care R&D Director – Consumer Technical Insight and Flavour who is based in London.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Unilever is a global Fast-Moving Consumer Goods company in the UK and Ireland. We are already on target to achieve our huge ambition to double the size of our business globally whilst reducing our environmental impact. We are growing our business and also doing what is right for our consumers, community and environment. We are developing brands for people’s lives today and for the changing environment tomorrow - making sustainable living commonplace.

Working at Unilever means that you get to take part in this exciting journey and work with amazing people who are really passionate about our large portfolio of famous brands. We want to improve billions of lives and you too can join us in making a sustainable difference.